He tries to remind himself that this is what someone else would’ve done, some mad dictator or mountain hermit. Eventually. The technology would’ve trickled out—these machines invisible to the naked eye that are just as capable of killing as they are of healing. When fanatics in basements begin to tinker, the end is near enough in the minds of many. No exotic or radioactive materials to process. Instead, machines that are becoming rapidly affordable, machines that can lay down parts one atom at a time, machines that can build other machines, which build more machines. All it will take is one madman to program a batch that sniffs out people by their DNA before snuffing them out.
John remembers his sophomore year of high school when he printed his first gun, how the plastic parts came out warm and slotted neatly together, how the printed metal spring locked into place, how the bullets chambered a little stiff with the first round and then better and better over time.
That was something he could understand, printing a weapon. This… this was the next generation’s music. These were the kids on his lawn. He was one of their parents pulling the stereo plug before anyone made too much trouble.
John picks out a black SUV in the eastbound lane. A gasser, a Lexus 500. He has always wanted to drive one of these.
Lifeless eyes watch him from either side as he approaches, heads slumped against the glass, blood trickling from noses and ears, just these rivulets of pain. John wipes his own nose and looks at his knuckle. Nothing. He is a ghost, a wandering spirit, an angel of vengeance.
There is a wreck farther ahead, a car on manual that had taken out a few others, the cars around it scattered as their auto-drives had deftly avoided collision. He passes a van with a sticker on the back that shows a family holding hands. He does not look inside. A dog barks from a station wagon. John hesitates, veers from his path toward the SUV and goes over to open the door. The dog does not get out—just looks at him with its head cocked—but at least now it is free. It saddens John to think of how many pets just lost their owners. Like the people stranded up in the sky, there is so much he didn’t consider. He heads to the SUV, feeling like he might be sick.
He tries the driver’s door on the Lexus and finds it unlocked. A man with a loosened tie sits behind the wheel, blood dripping from his chin. The blood has missed his tie to stain the shirt. A glance in the back shows no baby seat to contend with. John feels a surge of relief. He unbuckles the man and slides him out and to the pavement.
He hasn’t seen anything like this since Syria. It’s like a chemical attack, these unwounded dead.
Memories from the field surge back, memories of politicians back when they were soldiers. He gets in and cranks the Lexus, and the whine of the starter reminds him that it’s already running. The car has taken itself out of gear. John adjusts the rearview and begins to inch forward and back, working the wheel, until he’s sideways in traffic. Once again, he pulls off the interstate and down the embankment.
He heads straight for the wreckage of the Explorer and the van and gets out. Before Barbara and Emily can get to him, he has already pushed the passenger of the van back through the window and has covered him with the sport coat folded up on the passenger seat of the Lexus. John opens the back of the SUV, and Barbara whispers something to Emily. The three of them begin rounding up their gear and luggage and placing it into the car. It is a scavenger hunt for Emily. A box of canned goods has spilled down the embankment, and as she picks up each can and places it into the basket made by clutching the hem of her dress, John feels how wrong all of this is. There is too much normal left in the air. Being alive feels unnatural, a violation. He watches a buzzard swing overhead and land with a final flap of its wings on the top of the billboard. The great black bird seems confused by the stillness. Unsure. Disbelieving its luck.
“Is this ours?” Emily asks. She holds up the small single sideband radio, the antenna unspooled into a tangle.
“Yes,” John says. He tries to remember what he was thinking to pack the SSB, what sort of foolish hope had seized him. Barbara says nothing, just works to get everything into the new car. She brushes leaves of grass off her carry-on and nestles it into the Lexus. Her silence is louder than shouted questions. She used to do this when John came home with stitched-up wounds, saying nothing until John feels his skin burn and he has to tell her.
“I wasn’t positive—” he begins. He stops as Emily runs over to dump the contents of her dress into the car. He waits until she has moved beyond earshot again. “Part of me hoped nothing would happen, that I’d never have to tell you.”
“What happened on the highway?” his wife asks. She shows him her phone. “I can’t get anyone… Dad won’t—”
“Everyone is gone,” John says. He repeats this mantra, the one he keeps rolling over and over in his head. “Everyone.”
Barbara searches his face. John can feel twelve billion souls staring at him, daring him to make her understand. Even he doesn’t understand. Beyond the next exit, maybe the world is continuing along. But he knows this isn’t true. Barbara looks at her phone. Her hand is shaking.
“There was no stopping it,” John says. “Believe me.”
“Who is left? Who can we call?”
“It’s just us.”
Barbara is silent. Emily returns and stacks cans between the luggage.
“This is because of what you do, isn’t it?” Barbara asks. Emily has gone back for more.
John nods. Tears stream down Barbara’s cheeks, and she begins to shake. John has seen widows like this, widows the moment they find out that’s what they are. It is shock fading to acceptance. He wraps his arms around his wife, can’t remember the last time he held her like this.
“Did you do this?” she asks. Her voice is shaking and muffled as he holds her tight.
“No. Not… not exactly. Not directly.” He watches Emily delight in another find, far down the slope of grass.
“It’s something you…” Barbara swallows and hunts for the words. “…that you went along with.”
John can feel himself sag. He can’t tell who is propping up whom. Yes, it was something he went along with. That’s what he does. He goes along with. In Milan, succumbing to another, never leading. Never leading.
Emily arrives with something blue in her hands. “Is this ours?” she asks.
John pulls away from his wife. He looks down. It’s the book. The Order. “No,” he says. “That’s nobody’s. You can leave that here.”
There are two envelopes nestled inside the blue book, two sets of plane tickets. John pulls them both out and studies them, angles them back and forth to watch the printed holograms catch the light. It is raining outside, the wind blowing fat drops against the bedroom window, a sound like fingers tapping to be let in.
He sets the tickets aside and flips through the large book at random. Tracy thought it was the Bible when she first saw it—by dint of it being in a hotel room drawer, no doubt. He thinks about the New Testament and how long people have been writing about the end of the world. Every generation thinks it will be the last. There is some sickness in man, some paranoid delusion, some grandiose morbidity that runs right through to distant ancestors. Or maybe it is the fear in lonely hearts that they might die without company.
John finds the section in the book on security. His future job detail. If he doesn’t show, will they promote some other? Or will it mean extra shifts for someone else? John tries to imagine a group of people skipping through time to wait out the cleansing of the Earth. He tries to imagine kissing his wife goodbye as he lays her in a silver coffin. Kissing Emily and telling her it’ll all be okay. One last lie to them both before he seals them up.